Smyser decided to give it one more try at the 1967 NHRA Winternationals. It should be remembered that Smyser was a better than average racer. In 1965, he and a young truck driver Nando Haase won the 32-car Top Fuel show at Petersen’s Hot Rod Magazine Championships in Riverside, Calif, which was one of the top 10 fuel shows of that year. Five years later Smyser would just miss at the 1970 Bakersfield meet when he and river Harry Hibler runner-upped to Tony Nancy in an all San Fernando Raceway Top Fuel finale. He was nobody’s fool. It’s just … every now and then some folks are capable of making near fatal career decisions.

Smyser and his untrained ape left the building spectacularly and the actual incident occurred at roughly where I was sitting at this year’s event 42 years later. Smyser was running as an exhibition entertainer since there was no official Funny Car class at the time and during Saturday qualifying, he valiantly tried to ride the bull, who promptly tossed him into the dumpster.

At three-quarter track, the “Toronado” went out of control” and blasted through the guard rail on the right side of the track. Not satisfied with that, the massive Olds went after the local population instead of the fans, almost blowing through the fencing that keeps the race cars off of E Street, which parallels the Pomona track.

That was the last of the “Terrifying Toronado.” Smyser’s next appearance, again I think, was as an editorial writer for Drag Racing magazine where he spent a year condemning and screaming at all things Funny Car.

As a footnote. it should be noted that the late Lakewood Industries boss and Top Fuel/Top Gas racer Joe Schubeck suffered the same diasease as Smyser. In 1967. Hurst Corporation, obviously at a board meeting warped by blotter acid, decided to sponsor Schubeck’s “Hurst Hairy” Olds, a race car that was a near twin to the Toronado. It actually got a few full runs smoking all four tires before an untoward incident at a Michigan track.

At that event, Schubeck fireballed both motors, with the whole flaming package slamming through the sand trap, fencing and onto a farmer’s land where he set some of the brush on fire and reportedly killed his dog. With the irate farmer waving a shotgun and cursing a blue streak, Schubeck elected to withraw most expeditiously from the twin-motored Funny Car configuration.

So, return to the present. Funny Car and, for that matter, Top Fuel don’t have those cars like that on the menu anymore.  The Devil’s Lounge been cleaned up and is now very orderly. Dockers instead of Levis. The American Idol stage rather than Cb Gbs.

Aw what the hell, after 47 years I’ve grown accustomed to drag racing’s face. I’ll never stop going to the races, even though they are far more tame than wild. The marrow has been sucked out and so these days I just view the races now like a pooped out old marriage. Our sex life just isn’t what it used to be.